Hi there. I am new here. Bailey is a 3 year old husky/St. Bernard mix. She is the biggest, sweetest, spunkiest girl ever. Or at least she was before last Saturday night. She began having seizures in July. After a blood test to rule out possible issues she was started on Pheno. We have upped the dose once already. It really has not seemed to have much effect on her. She has a seizure once ever 2 to 3 weeks. However, on Saturday night about midnight we awoke to her having a seizure. She usually always has 3 at a time anywhere from minutes to 2 hours apart. This time she ended up having 5 seizures total between midnight and 2am. We have pill form of diazepam but it didn't help at all. She finally came our and rested for a couple hours. Then she started the pacing, running into things, panting. I called the vet first thing Sunday morning. He had me come in and get a drug that starts with an "m" to inject in her muscles to try to break the pattern. To keep this from getting any longer, the short story is that we gave her all 10cc of this drug throughout the day and at 8pm Sunday night she was having smaller cranial seizures. Our local vet said he didn't know what else to do and directed us to call an emergency vet. We drove 1.5 hours to the emergency vet where they gave her iv diazepam and iv Keppra. The said they were dosing the keppra to get her up to a theraputic level quickly. She hasn't had any more seizures but she is not really recovering either. She paces the house non-stop. Walks from one corner to another. She tries to fit behind things where she cant. She bumps into things and is very unsteady on her feet. She will not eat but will drink water if we take her to it. She does know us but is not very responsive to having her name called. The first night she slept all night but she has not slept since Tue morning. She paced all night last night. She is trained on a wireless fence collar. She walks right through it and acts like she has no idea where she is our where her boundaries are so we are taking her out on a leash. She won't go to the bathroom when we take her out. She is relieving herself on the floor in the entry way. I found a new vet who is supposed to know more about epilepsy and we see him at 4pm today. I am just so scared that she is not going to come back from this. If anyone has experienced anything similar or know about recovery I would appreciate any info you could share.

Hi,
This disease is so scary, especially in the beginning. It really tests you on a level of fear you never knew you had doesn't it?
Is the drug called Midazolam? It's supposed to help stop clusters. We used to give Jake an extra dose of Pb and Clorazepate after a seizure when he could take it and that worked for a very long time in keeping clusters under control. We gave it to him in vanilla ice cream and he loved it. There were times when he would have two but mostly just one once we figured it all out. That can take some time and a lot patience too. He started on Pb too, and it didn't do much at all either, but when we added Keppra all of a sudden Pb started helping. For Jake they worked together pretty well. We never got control but he was a happy boy for many years. Also, if your vet hasn't suggested it, try to get Rectal Valium. Tablets work after a seizure to keep levels up and protect against another seizure sometimes, but Rectal Valium gets in their system right away and that's what you need.
It sounds like Bailey is still recovering from the loading dose of Keppra that he got at the emergency hospital. It can take at least a week for them to come out of the fog. I know it's really heartbreaking to see them like this, but give it time. Early on, after a seizure Jake was like a bull in a china shop. He couldn't see or hear for at least 3 hours. We finally started to put him on a leash and walked him all over the place until he and we were so exhausted we couldn't take another step. Luckily that eventually stopped. The only upside was even in the dead of winter I got a very good workout.
I hope your new vet helped you figure out some possibilities.
We're here when you need us.
Take Care,
Lynne